Excuse: Lesbian Burlesque

Last night we went to the Parkway Speakeasy Theater in Oakland for their Thursday night Thrillville show, which was showing Barbarella and included a show by the Twilight Vixen Revue, an all-lesbian burlesque troupe.

It's funny people's perceptions of things. I think if you say there is going to be a show by a burlesque troupe, you may think of 80 year old, plump white-haired grannies telling you about what it was like "back in the day" when stripping was an art and not about shaking your money maker in someone's face for a dollar, while twirling a tired old feather boa and wearing too much rouge. But once you add "lesbian" at the beginning, and especially knowing you are in the Bay Area, home to such venerable institutions as the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre as well as loads of colleges and a thriving, liberal gay culture, and because "lesbian burlesque" somehow conjures the same reaction as, say, "women's prison" (sounds sexy!) you end up with something perceived entirely differently.

So what could be better than some cheesy 1968 sci-fi-comedy-cult-classic movie along with a little burlesque on a Thursday night? We thought we were clever showing up a half hour early. Haha...shows what we know! We're lucky we got to sit together towards the back of the theater, and we didn't even get a table so we had to balance pizza and wine on our laps. The movie was actually funnier/better than expected, at least *I* thought so. My bf, who enjoys fine restaurants, live jazz, golfing, etc. said something about "I'm going to need some more wine to get through this" and then later something about how we should plan a trip to Las Vegas if we want to see some good burlesque. I think he had fun, there were some definite laugh-out-loud moments, and the audience comments were rather amusing sometimes...but I'm not sure how many b-movies or how much campy burlesque he'd like to sit through in the future. Oh my...and I wanted us to go to the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show!